The present invention relates to the use of silicidation to reduce device resistance and signal propagation delays in semiconductor devices. More particularly, the present invention relates to silicide encapsulation of MOS transistor gates and interconnects.
Silicides, such as tungsten silicide (WSi.sub.2), titanium silicide (TiSi.sub.2), and cobalt silicide (CoSi.sub.2) are used in the semiconductor industry to enhance signal propagation through MOS transistors and other conductive features of semiconductor devices. A conventional silicide process produces a silicide region on the top of an MOS transistor's polysilicon ("poly") gate electrode and interconnect. The silicide has a lower resistance than the underlying doped silicon or poly. As a result, signal propagation through the transistor (gate and interconnect) is enhanced.
FIGS. 1A through 1E illustrate a conventional silicide process on a portion of a semiconductor wafer, such as is also described in S. Wolf, et al., Silicon Processing for the VLSI Era, vol.1, 397-399 (Lattice Press, 1986), which is incorporated by reference herein for all purposes. In FIG. 1A, a portion of a semiconductor wafer 100 having a semiconductor substrate 101 (typically monocrystalline silicon) is shown. The substrate 101 has gate oxide 102 and poly 104 layers generated successively on its upper surface 106. The gate oxide 102 and poly 104 layers are created in ways well known to those of skill in the art. For example, the gate oxide may be silicon dioxide (SiO.sub.2) generated by thermal oxidation of surface 106 of the silicon substrate 101, and the poly 104 may be deposited on the gate oxide 102 by chemical vapor deposition. FIG. 1B shows the wafer 100 after the poly layer 104 has been patterned and etched to form a gate electrode 108 according to methods well known in the art (e.g., photolithography and plasma etching).
At this point, an ion implantation may be performed to form at least a portion of the source and drain regions. This implant is sometimes referred to as a lightly doped drain (LDD) implant and is self-aligned with polysilicon gate electrode 108.
Next, as shown in FIG. 1C, a layer of dielectric 110 is deposited on the wafer surface, covering both the gate oxide 102 and the gate electrode 108. The wafer is then subjected to an anisotropic etch which removes the dielectric 110 and gate oxide 102 on all exposed horizontal surfaces. The remaining dielectric 110 provides vertical spacers 112. It should be noted that the terms "horizontal" and "vertical" are used herein relatively and with reference to a major surface of a semiconductor wafer, and may be interchanged. The spacers 112 act as an ion implantation mask for subsequent ion implant procedures which are used to dope portions of the substrate 101 adjacent to the gate electrode 108 in order to create or complete (depending on whether an LDD implant was performed) source 114 and drain 116 regions, as shown in FIG. 1D. The spacers 112, together with the remaining gate oxide 102, separate the poly gate 108 from the source 114 and drain 116 regions. As shown in FIG. 1E, after ion implantation, a refractory metal, such as titanium (Ti) is deposited on the wafer surface, and silicide layers 120, 122 and 124 are formed on the poly gate 108, source 114, and drain 116 regions, respectively, by reaction with the underlying poly/silicon by an alloy step well known in the art. Then, unreacted Ti is removed by a selective wet etch process, also well known in the art.
The conventional process of FIGS. 1A-1E results in the formation of silicide on the top surface but not the sidewalls of gate electrode. This is because sidewall spacers 112 protect the gate electrode sidewalls during silicide formation. This has the benefit of preventing the silicide layer from shorting the gate electrode to the source and drain regions. However, it has the disadvantage of providing only limited reductions in resistance. Until now, most processes did not require additional reductions in resistance. However, deep sub-micron device sizes require more significant reductions in resistance.
In order to achieve further reductions in resistance, it has been proposed that the silicide layer extend down the sidewalls of the gate electrode. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,227,320 and 5,306,951 present examples of such silicide "encapsulated" gate electrodes. To prevent shorting between the sidewall silicide and the source drain region, these designs allow the gate oxide to extend over the source and drain regions. Unfortunately, this precludes silicide formation on the source and drain regions.
As semiconductor device feature size is scaled below 0.25 .mu.m, interconnect and gate delays becomes increasingly important.
Accordingly, processes and apparatuses for further reducing device resistance and signal propagation delays are needed.